Tara (6 page)

'I suppose so, but it was real love all right. They was the best-looking couple for miles around. We was all glad for them.'

He shut his eyes for a moment, letting his mind wander back to that summer of '47. It had been around five or six in the evening and he was packing up his stall in pouring rain when he spotted Bill and Amy running hand in hand across Whitechapel Road, trying to shelter under an umbrella.

It was obvious they'd just left their own wedding. Bill's smart navy suit and trilby hat were peppered with confetti. Amy wore a white lacy costume, a dainty hat tipped over to one side and a spray of pink flowers on her breast.

Love shone out of them, and they were oblivious to anyone but each other. Bill's rugged face, his wide shoulders and lean body set off to perfection her utter femininity.

They were bound for the flat above Sid's fish and chip shop, everyone knew Bill had been painting and papering it for weeks. But as they reached the door, Bill scooped Amy up into his arms. It had brought tears to George's eyes to see them. Their faces were pressed together and laughter wafted back to him as he stood there in the rain.

Amy had been trying to hold the umbrella aloft and her hat fell off. Bill kissed her then, and Amy dropped the umbrella. There in the rain, in all their wedding finery, a kiss had been more important than the umbrella bowling away, and the hat lying on the dirty pavement.

Cars honked their horns, people skirted round them with smiles on their faces, but Bill and Amy were in a world of their own.

'It should have lasted forever.' George sighed. 'They was so 'appy together. No man was ever prouder of 'is pregnant missus. When Anne was born Bill was like a dog with three tails. I seen 'im out pushing the pram, all on 'is own, and not many blokes are that way inclined, specially tough ones like 'im.'

'So what went wrong?'

' 'E got stitched up for a blag in Sussex.' George shrugged his shoulders. 'Charged wiv whacking some old geezer over the 'ead with an iron bar. I don't reckon 'e did it. But 'e'd bin in this village in Sussex before, in fact 'ed bought an Anderson shelter off the old man. Anyway, 'e got fingered and was sent down. Didn't 'ave an alibi! 'Is van was placed just along the lane from the robbery. It didn't make no difference that someone else 'ad borrowed it that night. 'E got sent down.'

'I suppose the bloke what borrowed the van never owned up?'

George shook his head. 'Bill got even from inside. The bloke was kneecapped and 'e's still limping around 'ere somewhere. But that didn't 'elp Bill. Meanwhile Amy was 'aving a tough time, alone wiv the baby. She 'ad to take in sewing to feed them.'

'But why did he turn on her?' Harry still couldn't quite grasp how a man could change so much.

George spread his hands wide. ' 'Is dreams was down the Swanny, his reputation ruined for summat he didn't do. 'Is baby was two now, walkin' and talkin'. He couldn't get work 'cept on the buildings, and 'e 'adn't got no money to find a better 'ome. Loss of pride does funny things to people. Drinkin', a bit of gambling and soon things were turning sour, so he slapped 'er once or twice.'

'Then back to nick?' Harry only knew this side of Bill – in and out of prison, fighting drunk in the Black Bull.

George half smiled. 'I 'oped she'd leave 'im. But there was nuffin' between us, son, only friendship. But then you'll remember 'ow good she was to you?'

Harry smiled at the warm memory of Amy's kindness to a motherless, lonely little boy.

'You spent quite a bit of time with her that winter.' George smiled tenderly. 'I tell you, son, I envied you! But when Bill got out of prison she couldn't look after you no more. Not with 'im being so prickly an' all. Then Paul was born and that's when everything went really bad.'

George didn't like to dwell on the night Bill had knocked him out and claimed he was Paul's father. He wasn't ashamed of being knocked out – after all Bill was younger and fitter. But to this day he regretted not going back to Bill and convincing him there had never been anything but friendship between him and Amy, and telling him straight she had no eyes for anyone but her husband.

It was half past eight in the morning now, but the railway wall so close to the back of the house, and the leaden sky above, made it dreary and dark in the kitchen, even with the yellow paintwork. George knew he should get down to the market and put his affairs in order. But for the first time he could remember, he wanted to stay at home.

'I want to kill him!'

Harry's words jolted George.

'No, son.' George's watery blue eyes flashed with fire. 'I know how you feel but violence ain't the answer.'

What Harry was suggesting was the way in their manor. They could round up a few men, lie in wait for Bill and take him off to one of the old warehouses down by the river. George had never taken part in such a thing, but he knew all about nailing a man's hands to the floorboards, burning him with a blow torch, breaking his bones one by one until the victim screamed for mercy.

But Bill wasn't an average man and, unless they actually killed him, he'd come back fighting and someone innocent was bound to get caught in the crossfire. 'It would start gang warfare,' he said firmly. 'Bill still has mates, remember, just a spark could trigger it off. We've got to think of Amy and the children.'

The door opened suddenly, startling both men.

'What happened, Uncle George?'

Anne was still wearing her long white wincyette nightdress, with her feet bare, hair tangled, and sleep in her eyes.

'It was a fire, darlin'.' George felt sickened by the anxiety in her eyes. 'I should 'ave got the place rewired. One of the plugs was overloaded.'

She knew he was lying. She could sense the tense atmosphere, she saw a nerve twitching in George's cheek. Harry was looking the other way.

'How bad is it?' she asked. The smell of smoke on his clothes was overpowering and she could see the same kind of defeat in his eyes she'd seen a thousand times in her mother's.

'Gutted,' he laughed jovially. 'But every cloud 'as a silver linin', darlin'. I'll cop the insurance and sell the land, most of the stuff was dead stock anyways.'

She knew she wouldn't get the truth, but his lies were meant kindly.

'I'm so sorry, Uncle George.' She ran to him and put her arms around him. 'I'll go and run you a bath.'

'You ain't fooled her one little bit,' Harry said gloomily as she ran back upstairs. "That kid can look right through you like an X-ray!'

'Hullo, darlin'! 'Ow you doin'?' George bent over Amy's bed and planted a kiss on her forehead. 'I was coming by to get some stock so I thought I'd just pop in to see you. 'Arry's coming later wiv the kids.'

He plonked down a huge bunch of flowers and a bag of fruit. He looked his old self again after a bath and shave. His bulbous nose glowed bright red, and he wore his favourite black and white checked suit.

Amy put her good arm up to hide her missing teeth as she smiled. George looked a real wide-boy today and she knew he'd dressed up because he thought it would fool her.

She was feeling so much better. With a plastered arm, stitches above her right eye, no upper front teeth and her skin yellow with fading bruises she wouldn't win any beauty contests. But her cracked jaw and broken ribs were mending, and the infection in her chest was almost gone. She had even begun to relish the thought of proper food instead of the soft minced-up things they brought her.

'Where are you going to put this new stock with no warehouse?' she chided hum gently, taking his hand and squeezing it.

George gulped.

He glanced round the ward and waved to the other seven women while he gave himself time to think. He had intended to tell her the same story he'd told Anne, but clearly she'd seen a newspaper already.

'I'll bung it all in the 'ouse.' He flashed a brilliant smile. 'Like I said to Anne, it's a Godsend really. It was all dead stuff and I'll cop the insurance.'

The morning paper had bemoaned the loss of the old mission hall rather than his stock. He had checked it carefully and there had been no mention of arson.

'Don't even attempt to tell me any fibs.' Amy shook her head, a knowing look in her blue eyes. 'I know you want to spare my feelings and I'm sure you've told the children a good story. But I know it was Bill's doing.'

George shrugged non-committally and deftly changed the subject.

'Listen. A thought crossed my mind on the way here, about your mum. What happened to her?'

Once the stern-faced, black-coated figure handing out religious tracts by the Black Bull had been part of everyday life in the market. She'd moved into Dur-wood Street with her husband way back in 1929. As a young man George had often flirted with the curvaceous, beautiful redhead, before Arthur's death had changed her into a mean-faced old woman. Her disappearance had gone uncommented on for some time; but it must have been around six or seven years ago.

'I don't know where she went.' Amy sighed, a cloud passing over her face. 'You know she never spoke to me after I went off with Bill?'

George nodded.

'I used to walk up and down Durwood Street with Anne in the pram, hoping I'd run into her. I wrote to her so many times, but she never weakened. She must have heard how things were between Bill and me, I was surprised she never came round to gloat. I asked her neighbour where she'd gone when she disappeared but all she could tell me was that Mum went to work for a priest, as a housekeeper.'

'Suppose we could find her?' George asked, squeezing Amy's hand. 'Would you be prepared to make the peace?'

Amy closed her eyes for a moment. If she projected herself back to the time before the news of her father's death had unhinged her mother she had golden memories, but the more recent ones were all tinged with bitterness.

'I don't know,' she said softly. 'I can't forget the hell she put me through during the Blitz, or the misery of later. I'd like to think I was big enough to put that aside, but I don't know that I am.'

George saw a need in her eyes, whatever she was saying with her lips, but he changed the subject and moved on to market gossip to make her smile.

'You and Queenie ought to get together,' Amy teased him as he told her a hilarious story about Queenie catching a woman with a stolen cabbage stuck up her jumper. 'She's been a widow for ten years now and you get on so well.'

Queenie had been in to see Amy the night before. She was as powerful a character as George with her blonde bouffant hair, red talons and sparkling jewellery. Although she was fifty and overweight, she was still an attractive lady and she was lonely, too.

'I'll think on that one,' George said as he got up to leave. 'Trouble is, love, me and 'er 'ave always bin mates. She'd think I'd gone daft if I tried to court 'er now.'

'Well, I might just stir things up.' Amy smiled, offering her cheek for a kiss. 'It's about the only useful thing I can do from this bed!'

'You can hurry up and get well.' George enveloped her in an awkward hug. 'And don't forget it was faulty wiring that started the fire! We stick to that story for the kids.'

Chapter 3

It was pure impulse that led George to the vicarage of the Church of St John's. He hadn't been near the place since his wife Irene died but he remembered the kindness and understanding Father Glynn had shown him then.

The old Gothic house hadn't changed much. It was as spooky as ever with its narrow windows, dark red brick and studded oak door set in an ornate porch. But council flats overshadowed it now, creating the impression it had only been left behind on sufferance.

Weeds grew up through the broken-tiled path, the benches in the porch where he'd sat as a small boy were broken, but the windows sparkled and he could see a bowl of bright pink hyacinths on the sill.

'Well, well, well.' Father Glynn beamed with pleasure and surprise as he opened the door. 'There's a surprise and no mistake. How is it with you?'

The wizened little Irishman had left his native Cork at eighteen and hadn't been back in fifty years, but his Irish brogue was as strong as if he'd just stepped off the boat at Holyhead. He had embraced the East End from the day he was sent there as a young curate. He kept his finger on the very pulse of life in Bethnal Green and made it his business to know everyone in his parish.

George dwarfed the little priest, the hand held out was as small as Anne's, yet his firm grip and piercing blue eyes belied the bent body and wrinkled face.

'Not too bad.' George grinned. 'That is, if I don't think about the burned warehouse.'

'Sure and I read about it in the paper this morning.' Father Glynn beckoned George in. 'That's a fearful piece of bad luck, my friend.'

The house smelled of age and there was a dull film over the handsome black and white tiled hall floor. Father Glynn led George into his study and poured him a large Irish whiskey. This room too was shabbier than George remembered, but just as cosy, with two winged armchairs covered in rugs to conceal the splitting upholstery, walls full of leather-bound books and a threadbare rug in front of a coal fire.

George had sat in one of these chairs some twenty-three years earlier and Irene had sat on a small stool, a girl of twenty with long black hair and eyes as bright as Harry's, while Father Glynn talked to them about marriage vows. They had been so happy, unaware that, even then, tuberculosis was creeping into her lungs. Father Glynn had baptised Harry, too, and just a couple of years later conducted Irene's funeral.

They drank their whiskey and talked about mutual friends, Harry and boxing as if it was quite natural for George to pop in.

'I heard you bought a house in Paradise Row.' The old man gave him a sharp look as if to remind him his church was just across the road. 'I expect you know the Jewish boxer, Daniel Mendoza, used to live at number three?'

'Is that right?' George was impressed that a man of the cloth knew so much about the sport and its heroes.

'But you didn't come for a chat about boxing.' Father Glynn smiled, small dark eyes studying George closely. 'And I can see trouble sitting on your shoulder, so why don't you tell me about it?'